My name's Paul and I'm a sugarholic. I've come to sugarholics anonymous today because as I get back into my diet after my holiday I've noticed that I'm craving sweet items. I can normally take or leave chocolate and cakes. My sugar intake on holiday was a lot higher than usual, mainly due to the delicious cakes in the French patisseries. I'm now convinced that sugar and carbohydrates in general are actually addictive.
I noticed this first when I did the Atkins diet years back. On that diet your daily carbohydrate limit is so low that chocolate and sweets are effectively banned. When I first started the Atkins I went through a carb cold turkey, as I stopped the carbs I craved them more and more until one day the craving just went.
When you get your carb fix, you feel full up and your blood sugar peaks. It seems to me that when your blood sugar level starts to drop (the come down) you start craving more carbs again (another fix) to recapture that high. I noticed that high-carb breakfast cereals that are meant to keep your hunger locked up until lunch didn't, and I started craving carbs and getting hunger pangs by mid-morning. Avoiding carbs at breakfast stopped this and made it easier to avoid carb-rich snacks throughout the day.
I'm not saying avoid all carbs, as a balanced diet should have them, I'm saying avoid high-carb foods, go cold turkey. No biscuits, chocolate, sugar, high-carb breakfasts (try protein) etc Try it for a few days and wonder at how you suddenly stop craving them and regain control over your eating habits.
I'm going cold-turkey now, I see carbs wherever I look. My boss's face is a chocolate chip cookie, as oppose to the punch-bag I usually see it as, my mouse is now a cheesecake slice, and my keyboard a dairy milk slab. That is my story, with your help I'll get through this. Thank you for listening.
Thursday, 24 September 2009
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Summer Holiday Blues
The annual summer holiday presents a dilemma to those that diet. Do you loosen the rules a bit by remaining sensible but occasionally having the odd luxury? Do you stick rigidly to your daily allowance of calories? Or do you forget about diets for the week and tuck in?
Loosening the rules will mean you’ll spend the holiday checking your calories and seeing that the odd indulgence is sending you over your daily limit. You’ll end up spending the holiday feeling guilty about everything you eat so not a good way to spend the week.
Sticking to the diet rigidly is a good approach, after-all, a diet should be a change of lifestyle rather than a temporary reduction of your food intake if you want it to work, so to keep going while on holiday is a good way of cementing this new way of living.
You’re on holiday though, it only comes around once a year, this can be the excuse you need to fill your face until you can eat no more. It’s outside of your daily routine so as long as you get straight back on it when you come back you should be fine.
Those of you that have read my previous columns can probably guess which approach I took, you can’t go to France and diet.
Every day started with a continental breakfast; croissants, French bread, smoked ham, salami and fresh orange juice.
We’d go out sightseeing some days and have lunch at one of the many cafes. It normally consisted of omelette as I know the French word for omelette. There was always time to pop to a patisserie for the most amazing cakes of a quality that you wouldn’t get in the chain-store bakeries of England.
The other days involved cycling with a packed lunch of ham sandwiches and crisps.
All of this contributed to me arriving home with an upset stomach and an extra half-stone of weight that my new scales kindly informed me of upon arrival. I’ve got to get round to undoing all of this now.
Loosening the rules will mean you’ll spend the holiday checking your calories and seeing that the odd indulgence is sending you over your daily limit. You’ll end up spending the holiday feeling guilty about everything you eat so not a good way to spend the week.
Sticking to the diet rigidly is a good approach, after-all, a diet should be a change of lifestyle rather than a temporary reduction of your food intake if you want it to work, so to keep going while on holiday is a good way of cementing this new way of living.
You’re on holiday though, it only comes around once a year, this can be the excuse you need to fill your face until you can eat no more. It’s outside of your daily routine so as long as you get straight back on it when you come back you should be fine.
Those of you that have read my previous columns can probably guess which approach I took, you can’t go to France and diet.
Every day started with a continental breakfast; croissants, French bread, smoked ham, salami and fresh orange juice.
We’d go out sightseeing some days and have lunch at one of the many cafes. It normally consisted of omelette as I know the French word for omelette. There was always time to pop to a patisserie for the most amazing cakes of a quality that you wouldn’t get in the chain-store bakeries of England.
The other days involved cycling with a packed lunch of ham sandwiches and crisps.
All of this contributed to me arriving home with an upset stomach and an extra half-stone of weight that my new scales kindly informed me of upon arrival. I’ve got to get round to undoing all of this now.
Monday, 14 September 2009
Essay writing blues
(From 10th September)
I finally got round to replacing my scales at the weekend, it was quite scary unpacking them. I couldn't help but think about the bag of doughnuts and the doner kebab that had tempted me in the previous weeks. I felt like a cheating husband unpacking the lie detector that was going to expose his misdeeds. I laid them out in front of me, jogged on the spot for a moment to rid a couple more picograms, braced myself and stepped on very carefully so as not to skew the results of my first weigh in for a month. I looked down and was greeted with the news that I had lost 10 pounds, that is a total of just under 2 stone since I started weighing myself so probably about 3 and a bit in total, not bad eh?
The celebration didn't last long as I had to do an essay for my degree that I'd been putting off for days. I've handed every one in late this year so I couldn't do it again. There's no time to cook or prepare a meal when I'm studying so I end up picking throughout the day. This time was different though, the morning's good news was to spur me on to do the right thing. I took a break, something I rarely do when writing, and picked up a sandwich. It didn't help, I was still craving sugary snacks and it was significantly affecting my concentration. I didn't give in, if I hadn't had the good news that morning I probably would have.
I'm off on holiday to France next week. French food is too good for me to be on a diet, I've heard good things about the 'brochette de viande dans une pitta'. I wonder what kebabs are like in France?
I finally got round to replacing my scales at the weekend, it was quite scary unpacking them. I couldn't help but think about the bag of doughnuts and the doner kebab that had tempted me in the previous weeks. I felt like a cheating husband unpacking the lie detector that was going to expose his misdeeds. I laid them out in front of me, jogged on the spot for a moment to rid a couple more picograms, braced myself and stepped on very carefully so as not to skew the results of my first weigh in for a month. I looked down and was greeted with the news that I had lost 10 pounds, that is a total of just under 2 stone since I started weighing myself so probably about 3 and a bit in total, not bad eh?
The celebration didn't last long as I had to do an essay for my degree that I'd been putting off for days. I've handed every one in late this year so I couldn't do it again. There's no time to cook or prepare a meal when I'm studying so I end up picking throughout the day. This time was different though, the morning's good news was to spur me on to do the right thing. I took a break, something I rarely do when writing, and picked up a sandwich. It didn't help, I was still craving sugary snacks and it was significantly affecting my concentration. I didn't give in, if I hadn't had the good news that morning I probably would have.
I'm off on holiday to France next week. French food is too good for me to be on a diet, I've heard good things about the 'brochette de viande dans une pitta'. I wonder what kebabs are like in France?
Wax on, wax off
(From 3rd September)
I've taken a lot on recently. I'm in the 5th year of a degree with the Open University, I'm redoing my Maths GCSE, I'm learning French, I'm starting a teaching course in September, I'm writing this column, and attending the gym 3 times a week (sometimes). This is on top of a full-time job, a wife and 2 toddlers under the age of 2. The idea is that I won't have time to eat; ergo I lose weight. I call it the 'heading for a nervous-breakdown' method. I've found that I still have 2 hours on a Wednesday evening free, so I've started Karate.
My size and fitness has put me off doing it before; I'm a little trimmer and have improved my fitness this year so I gave it a go.
The instructor was very accommodating, he told me to do what I could and not worry about keeping up. I kept up for 95% of the warm-up, just being let down by my inability to do sit-ups, no issue was made of it. I was then taken aside to learn how to punch and shown a basic kick before joining the rest of the class.
It was the best workout I've ever had, I burnt 1700 calories in 2 hours; more than I had eaten all day, and enjoyed it much more than the irksome gym. I thoroughly recommend it, especially to men who find aerobics classes a bit feminine. It's aerobics with added violence, perfect!.
Benjamin, my 19 month-old, has been copying my moves and laughing when I practice at home. One of the reasons I wanted to lose weight was I didn't want my boys to be embarrassed of me. If I can do well at Karate perhaps I can give them something to brag to their friends about, "My Dad's a black-belt!". I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself though, after all, I've only been to the one lesson so-far.
I've taken a lot on recently. I'm in the 5th year of a degree with the Open University, I'm redoing my Maths GCSE, I'm learning French, I'm starting a teaching course in September, I'm writing this column, and attending the gym 3 times a week (sometimes). This is on top of a full-time job, a wife and 2 toddlers under the age of 2. The idea is that I won't have time to eat; ergo I lose weight. I call it the 'heading for a nervous-breakdown' method. I've found that I still have 2 hours on a Wednesday evening free, so I've started Karate.
My size and fitness has put me off doing it before; I'm a little trimmer and have improved my fitness this year so I gave it a go.
The instructor was very accommodating, he told me to do what I could and not worry about keeping up. I kept up for 95% of the warm-up, just being let down by my inability to do sit-ups, no issue was made of it. I was then taken aside to learn how to punch and shown a basic kick before joining the rest of the class.
It was the best workout I've ever had, I burnt 1700 calories in 2 hours; more than I had eaten all day, and enjoyed it much more than the irksome gym. I thoroughly recommend it, especially to men who find aerobics classes a bit feminine. It's aerobics with added violence, perfect!.
Benjamin, my 19 month-old, has been copying my moves and laughing when I practice at home. One of the reasons I wanted to lose weight was I didn't want my boys to be embarrassed of me. If I can do well at Karate perhaps I can give them something to brag to their friends about, "My Dad's a black-belt!". I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself though, after all, I've only been to the one lesson so-far.
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